Minimap is a neat little Firefox add-on that opens up a map in your sidebar where you can store addresses, view traffic, and get directions using Google, Yahoo!, or Windows Live Local. You can right click on any address on a web page and choose to immediately map that location in your Minimap or drag and drop addresses to view and store for later reference. There’s also a Google search bar on the map so you can search for locations in your Minimap.
I’ve been using Minimap for the past week or so and have found it very useful. I thought it would be best if I shared it with you! Here’s my screencast tour of Minimap:
I don’t know what they’re feeding the Google Maps team, but I wish they’d send some of it my way. There are some new features that have been released over the past couple of weeks, and I thought I’d show them to you just in case you’ve missed them. First off, Hybrid view is out and Terrain view is in. You can still view the “Hybrid view” but it’s not called that anymore. It’s actually just the default view when you click on Satellite. Second, you can edit default marker locations on Google Maps now. Those markers never seemed to be dead on when it came to marking a location, so this could prove to be very useful. The last feature, and the newest, is collaboration in My Maps. Now you can create a map and allow friends to edit and add things to it. This is great for people planning a vacation or mapping out hiking or biking trails. Like I said, I don’t know what those guys at Google are on but the way they push out new features I think they may be eating the same magic gumdrops as the guys at Zoho. Here’s my screencast tour of Google Maps updates:
Friends and family who know me are well aware of my “little problem” when it comes to driving directions. Basically, my sense of direction is so bad that I get lost any time I turn off of my street. This fact was proven once again a couple of weeks ago when I was driving home from an event and was so turned around that I could have been in Texas and not known the difference. It was late at night and I started to panic after about 45 minutes of driving around – absolutely nothing looked familiar. I’m not big on stopping and asking for directions (especially in the neighborhood I was in) because it makes me feel like an idiot, which probably makes me an even bigger idiot. Finally I called a friend of mine and I told him the intersection I was at and he Google Mapped me home. What if no one was home though? What would I have done? I would probably still be driving in circles.
Today, all of my fears of getting lost in the ghetto again have been laid to rest thanks to the “get me the heck outta here!” service from Dial Directions. All you need to do is dial the letters DIR-ECT-IONS on your cell phone and tell the nice lady on the other end where you want to go and your current location. A text message arrives almost instantly with directions from MapQuest. You can also specify major chain stores and be given directions to the one closest to your location. You can even create directions to an event on Dial Directions and then tell your friends to call the number and say the name of the event. They’ll be given directions from where they are to the location you plugged into the Dial Directions website. Normally I only post screencasts on DemoGirl but in this case I thought I’d share this demo video they put together so you can see just how cool this service is. Just so ya know, I did try it out and it worked great.
YourStreet gives you a way to see exactly what’s going on in your neighborhood – “down to the street level”. After you choose your location, you’re presented with an interactive map that displays news stories, conversations, and people. You can see news that happened down the street from you, participate in conversations with people who live nearby, and read profiles of people around you. Members can add their own news stories and place them exactly where they happened. Someone even started a conversation simply titled, “Looking for love”. (Too bad the first person to comment suggested that they hang out at Jamba Juice.)
I made a screencast for YourStreet back in April, when they were more of a real estate guide for neighborhoods. Obviously the site has changed dramatically since then, and now the name “YourStreet” actually holds a bit more meaning. Here’s my screencast tour of YourStreet:
AOL has finally decided to pull MapQuest out of the Web 1.0 closet and pretty it up with some much needed new features. Now, with MapQuest Beta, users can enter in an address into a one-line search box instead of 4 different boxes. You can save your searches and set default home and work addresses. There is also a map on the MapQuest Beta homepage. You can create multiple destination directions and re-order them as needed. There is also a choice of printing a map with text and a map or just plain old text. If you’re not quite ready for a change, (some people are so fussy!) MapQuest non-Beta is still available. Here’s my screencast tour of MapQuest Beta:
TripTracker is a mapping service that helps you share your travel experiences, day to day, with friends and family. Each trip you create has its own journal, a place for photos, and a map. You can place all of your photos and journal entries on the map with a time stamp, so everyone will always know where you are or where you’ve been. If you have a GPS device, you can also upload your files to TripTracker and all of your locations will be placed on your map. Within the TripTracker community, you can view other peoples trips, make friends, and comment on their trips. Here’s my screencast tour of TripTracker:
Google Transit went ahead and moved out of the Labs and onto Google Maps today. Google Transit has been available for a while, but now when you search for directions on Google Maps, you’ll see an option to “Take Public Transit”. Click on that and you can completely plan your trip and print out an itinerary to take with you. You can also compare the cost of driving your own car to the cost of taking public transit. Unfortunately, Google Transit is only available in 10 states and Japan, so you may not see an option to “Take Public Transit” when you’re searching for directions on Google Maps. Here’s my screencast tour of Google Transit:
MapSkip gives you a place to share stories and photos from places you’ve been. You can also browse the map and read stories that other members have left and add your own if you’ve experienced something in the same location. Members can comment on and rate stories and photos which is used to rank them and make the best ones easier to find. MapSkip could be used to describe where you went on your honeymoon, got your first apartment, or where you took a really great photo. Here’s my screencast tour of MapSkip:
GlobalMotion is a location Wiki that wants to collect all of the most interesting places in the world. All of the content is geotagged with geographical coordinates so adding photos and places nearby is easy. Anyone can edit the content and you can add your own place in just minutes. You can add markers, draw lines and shapes, and put a map on your website or blog. It’s actually pretty interesting and really easy to use. Here’s my screencast tour of GlobalMotion:
When looking for a new place to live, there’s almost an endless amount of online resources that are supposed to be useful. But how do you sift through them all to find the best ones? Well, if you’ve been reading DemoGirl for a while you probably know that I’m moving soon. (Saturday!) Whenever I have free time I’m usually searching the Web for an apartment. I’ve found some useful sites and some that have more ads than apartment listings. So, I decided to share some of the sites that I’ve been using for my apartment hunt. The sites referenced in this screencast are MyApartmentMap, craigslist, hotpads, and ApartmentRatings. If you think I’ve missed an important resource then please share it in the comments! Here’s the screencast:
